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60% Trade Cut: Chinese Exchange Delists NEO, Others

One of China’s top digital currency exchanges has announced it is delisting 13 of the 20 digital assets that trade on its platform.

Yunbi, which ranks behind OKCoin and Huobi only in China as the top exchanges, cites the brewing initial coin offering (ICO) ban by the Chinese government as a key factor for delisting the ICO-related coins which include QTUM, GXS (GXShares), EOS, ANS (NEO but formerly known as Antshares), DGD (DigixDAO), 1ST (FirstBlood), GNT (Golem), REP (Augur), SNT (Status), OMG (OmiseGo), PAY (Tenx), LUN (Lunyr) and VEN (VeChain).

The 13 tokens to be delisted make up almost $26 mln (about 65%) of the $41.6 mln traded in the 24-hour volume before the announcement was made by the world’s 22nd largest exchange. Yunbi had earlier posted that they had an “internal self-examination” shortly after temporarily suspended trading functions on the exchange a day earlier and paused their APIs. Due to panic selling among investors, most of the delisted tokens are expected to see a drop in their market value.

After the announcement, there were questions about whether NEO, the China-based open-source project world-leading public blockchain supported by communities and developers which is dubbed ‘the Chinese Ethereum’ meant to conduct ICOs, is part of the tokens delisted. The confusion arises as a result of the use of ANS ticker (which represents NEO’s former brand name Antshares) in the Yunbi announcement. The Red Pulse ICO which was supposed to start on the NEO platform this week has been postponed until regulations become clearer. It has not been cancelled.

The ICO ban could be a part of China’s resolve to maintain its advantage in blockchain development and to become a global leader in the sector. The Asian giant has expressed its interest in creating an open ecosystem that will promote the adoption of a sharing and open source model that will attract global talents and reduce unnecessary competition. China’s technological setting is highly advanced. Going by the country’s recent moves, China could be the first government globally to regulate and legitimize Blockchain-based and and crypto-related assets.